Peter May - Runaway

It took a moment before awareness invaded his game and he swung his head towards them, perplexed. ‘What?’ he said.

Two successive nights at the Victoria Infirmary and Jack was starting to feel like an outpatient. Being an inpatient following his heart scare, albeit briefly, had been bad enough. Beyond those critical first few hours they had moved him to a geriatric ward to complete the rest of his recovery. That was the first time it had ever occurred to him that he was ‘old’. The first time he had stood back to see himself as others saw him. An elderly, silver-haired gentleman, robust enough, but clearly past his sell-by. The all-pervading smell of urine in the ward, and a sleepless night spent listening to the wails and caterwauling of dementia patients, had persuaded him to check himself out first thing the next morning. He was damn well going to convalesce at home.

He smelled drink on Dave’s breath when they met outside the Battlefield Rest, breath that billowed around his head like smoke in the cool, still night air. Hard to believe it was April.

He said, ‘You know, I just realized on the bus tonight that it was exactly fifty years ago this month.’

Dave was puzzled. ‘What was?’

‘That we ran away to London.’

‘Really?’ He took off his cap to scratch his head. ‘Jesus. If I’d known then what I know noo...’ He caught Jack’s eye and a smile came briefly, sad and funny at the same time. ‘I’d probably still be a drunk.’

‘Aye, very likely.’ Jack took Dave’s arm. ‘Come on, let’s go see what Maurie has to say for himself.’

If anything, Maurie seemed worse than he had the previous evening. He lay with his eyes half closed, skin the colour and texture of putty, his arms lying outside the sheets, giant knuckles on withered hands. There were three nurses sitting on the end of his bed watching The Street tonight, more interested in idle chatter than anything on-screen.

‘Jesus!’ Jack said. ‘He’s foaming at the mouth!’

And the three of them jumped off the bed, turning in alarm as Maurie opened his eyes and looked confused.

‘He’s not!’ The senior nurse turned an accusatory look towards Jack, who just shrugged.

‘Aye, well, he might have been, and you wouldn’t have been any the wiser, would you?’ He held the door open. ‘Would you mind, ladies? We’ve got things to discuss here with Mr Cohen.’

All three glared at him and made their exit with a bad grace. Jack closed the door. Dave gazed at Maurie in shocked disbelief.

‘Bloody hell, mate, what have you been drinking? You look worse than me.’

Which forced a smile to Maurie’s lips. ‘Aye, well...’ he said. ‘I think my liver’s about the only thing left functioning.’ He heaved himself into a seated position. ‘Good to see you, Dave. You still playing?’

Dave flicked a glance at Jack. ‘No’ as much as I’d like, Maurie. You still singing?’

‘Like a lintie.’ Which made him laugh, which turned into a cough, and they heard phlegm and God knows what else rattling in his chest.

‘You’re in no fit state tae go tae London, boy,’ Dave said.

‘I’m as fit as I’ll ever be.’

‘Aye, well, that’s probably true.’ Dave pulled up a chair and leaned in towards Maurie. ‘Yer aff yer fucking heid, man. We cannae go tae London.’ Dave’s accent had always broadened when he got emotional. ‘We’ve nae money, nae transport, and you cannae walk. So we’re gonnae get far, eh?’

‘I’ve got money,’ Maurie said.

‘Good for you. I huvnae.’ He looked at Jack, who was watching them from the end of the bed. Then he turned sad eyes back to Maurie. ‘It’s a crazy idea, man. Give it up.’

But Maurie shook his head. ‘No.’ He looked from one to the other. ‘And if you won’t go with me, I’ll pay someone to take me.’

‘Give us one good reason why we should,’ Dave said.

‘Because it’s the right thing to do. Even if it has taken me fifty years to realize it.’

‘Jack says you’re saying it wisnae Flet who killed that guy, after all.’

Maurie nodded.

‘So who did?’

Maurie drew a deep breath. ‘You’re going to have to trust me on that.’

Dave blew air through his teeth. ‘Why?’

Maurie seemed wounded by Dave’s doubt. ‘Because we have more than fifty years of friendship between us.’ He fought to draw in another breath. ‘And what have any of us got to lose now? How long before you’re in a home, like Jack here? Or in a recovery ward. How long before we’re all bloody dead?’

Giving voice to things that none of them had dared even to think about brought a sudden reflective silence to the group. But Maurie wasn’t finished.

‘And I’ll be gone before any of you. All the regrets of my life piled up like overdrafts in a bankrupt account. Only blessing is that I’ve no kids to be ashamed of me. To cover up the legacy of a disgraced father. Disbarred for fraud and eighteen months in the Bar-L. Christ, my own family’ll hardly talk to me.’

The sudden colour in his face was unhealthy. A damaged heart working too hard to pump blood to his head.

‘Take it easy, Maurie,’ Jack said.

Maurie turned fiery eyes in his direction. ‘And what do you have to show for it all, Jack? Forty years counting other people’s money? You were talented once.’

Jack tried not to let Maurie’s words hurt him. He had built his own defences against failure long ago. ‘Lots of people are talented, Maurie. But it’s not enough on its own. You should know that better than anyone.’

Maurie couldn’t hold his gaze, and his eyes drifted off into some distant past existing now only in his memory. ‘Voice of an angel, they said.’ Then he snapped back to the present, looking from one to the other defiantly. ‘But no point regretting what you can’t change. And as long as I’m breathing, there are some things I still can.’

‘Like what?’ Dave said.

‘Well, for one thing, I’m stopping the damned chemo. The cure’s worse than the fucking ill, and it’s not curing me. So I’ll spend the rest of my days on painkillers, and I’ll not miss throwing up every five minutes.’ He paused. ‘And I’ll do what I should have done fifty years ago. Even if I can’t change it, I can put it right. I’m going, whether you come with me or not.’ He glared at them defiantly. ‘Well? We weren’t scared to run away when we were seventeen. And we had everything to lose then.’ He chuckled mirthlessly. ‘Blew it, too.’ Then he refocused. ‘Could be this is our last chance to do anything. Anything!’ He raised his eyes expectantly, shifting his gaze from one friend to the other.

The cold night air in the car park came as a shock after the stuffy heat of the hospital.

Jack breathed in deeply. ‘This is insane, Dave.’

Dave shook his head. ‘Naw. Running away tae the Big Smoke when we were seventeen, that was insane. This is much worse.’ He turned a serious face towards his co-conspirator, before a big smile wiped years off it.

Jack said, ‘We’re going to need transport. And someone to drive. I’m still not allowed.’ He glanced at Dave.

‘Aye, I know. And I’m no’ to be trusted.’

The sky above them was a sparkling black velvet, a gibbous moon rising into view above Langside College. The sound of traffic filled the air. ‘Dave... I’m only going to do this if you promise to stay off the drink. At least until it’s all over.’

Dave grinned. ‘Nae problem. Man of steel, me. Iron willpower.’

Jack looked at him sceptically and sighed, then turned to look up at the ugly black edifice of the infirmary towering above them. ‘And we’re going to have to figure out some way of getting Maurie out of there.’